Slashdot Mirror
Man Arrested for Wireless Piggybacking
Sommelier writes "As reported by KATU in Portland, Oregon, a man was arrested for parking outside a coffee shop in nearby Vancouver, Washington, and using their open wireless AP — for three straight months. '"He doesn't buy anything," Manager Emily Pranger says about the man she ended up calling 911 about. "It's not right for him to come and use it."' Turns out the guy was a registered sex-offender as well." A different computer expert might have pointed out some ways to see if anyone is piggybacking on a wireless signal (many APs have a Web-interface client list), or even suggested something like NoCatAuth.
If it's open, it's okay to use it.
Don't want strangers to use your AP? Secure it.
The whole point of the open AP is to encourage people to hang around in the shop or the area around it. The smart thing would be to send somebody out with a free cup of coffee and get him hooked.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Theft of services??? How about trespassing. Much easier to get him on that especially since the deputies told him to stop hanging around in the parking lot.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
I don't get the legalities of this all. Was he tresspassing? Was he stealing coffee? Did he sign a contract saying that he would buy x amount of coffee for y amount of bandwidth? If the coffee house wants to secure their network, the technology is available. I get that the guy was a creepy sex offender, making him easy to demonize, but in theory he's paid his pennance and isn't committing more crimes. (aside from dubious wi-fi stealing laws) I am playing music loud on my outdoor speakers, I can't sue my neighbors for listening to it. In the same way, if I'm broadcasting a wi-fi signal, it's my responsibility to secure this signal
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
Calling 911 when someone just stole your car - questionable, but I can understand it I guess since you want to get in touch ASAP since time is of the essence, and you may not know the local police number.
Calling 911 because someone is annoying you by using your WAP???? How in any way is this an emergency? Why couldn't the store take 30 seconds to look up the local number for the police?
911 is for emergencies. The phone line time these bozos were taking up to complain about a guy using internet may have delayed an ambulence getting dispatched by 45 seconds - 45 seconds that could mean life or death for someone. People should get fined for this bullshit.
> Turns out the guy was a registered sex-offender as well.
So what if he's using someone elses internet connection? It's not morally wrong as far as I'm concerned, and it's probably not even legally wrong in a lot of places. The people in the coffee shop are selling someone elses coffee - which they've paid a fraction of what they're going to make off it to the original suppliers for. I mean, while we're talking about being fair here...
(It wouldn't be so bad if he'd been a communist, drug user or muslim. Gotta keep those bogeymen alive...need an excuse to spy, burgle and bug citizens.)
I believe your going in left field with this one. There isn't a TOS for wireless access. If you don't want someone to use it then you have to keep the radio waves out of his property. He was pretty much using the service that was trespassing on public property. It stinks that he is a sex offender because he'll be setting precedence in court by being convicted leaving the door open for other to be convicted on some charge like this. No, it isn't thinking of the children; it is just another freedom being infiltrated because I let my wireless network be used by anyone and many others do the same. Soon this might be illegal thanks to the shop.
Why is this a police matter? Seems to me that the Cafe was not taking any measure to prevent his use... Did they even have a "Click through" page where he had to agree to "Terms of Service", i wonder? This would be like me putting a bench in a public park and calling the police if anybody sat on it. The ones being arrested should be the business owners... for wasting the Police's time, and for making false 911 calls.
using their open wireless AP
When deputies told Smith to knock it off, he came back and is now charged with theft of services.
This article is pure FUD. Okay, the guy was a sex offender. The article only mentions this once, and it clearly says they have no idea if he actually did anything wrong. It just says that to discredit him.
I can't help but wonder if during those 3 months anyone working at the coffee shop bothered to ask him if he wanted a drink, or informed him that he would have to make a purchase if he wanted to continue using their wireless AP.
A computer expert told KATU News there is no way to know if someone is using your wireless connection without permission.
Some computer expert.....did I mention this was all FUD?
"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
If they leave their internet wide open and broadcast an SSID then I beleive its fair to assume that this is an open invatiation and they are offerng a community service.
If he was just using the internet why would the coffee shop give a damn anyway? its not like they are losing anything. In fact, I would have thought the coffee-shop would WANT to offer a free wifi zone as its free publicity about how community-minded they are.
I think there must be more in this. He was probably parked in front of thsir shop, downloading porn and masturbating in public.
Complaining that someone was using an unsecured, free AP as theft of services is like saying someone should have to close their eyes if they hang around outside your store at night as to avoid taking advantage of your free lights.
(someone has to have a better one than that, let's see it!)
What it boils down to is that if they want people to have to buy something to use the WAP then secure it in a way as to assure that happens, don't complain because you're too lazy to do something proactive to control it. It isn't hard. People fire up a browser , first page is a redirect on which they have to enter the "password du jour" which, as mentioned above, could easily be printed on the reciepts or even on a small sign next to the cash register.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
Two teenagers screwing all the time. The guy turns 18 years old. Suddenly he can't fuck his 17-year-old girlfriend without committing rape. Her mom is pissed, and insists on prosecution. Guy goes to jail (instead of school) and becomes a registered sex offender.
Then...
Girlfriend turns 18. Girlfriend moves in with her boyfriend's parents while waiting for the boyfriend to get out of jail. Girlfriend and boyfriend get married and start a family.
Girlfriends mother probably wonders why her daughter won't call anymore, and why she married a guy who couldn't complete school.
-----
A friend of mine saw just this. Neighbors won't let their kids play with the couple's kids. If the guy gets reported as doing something like helping out with a kid's soccer team, he immediately goes to jail until a judge can find time to deal with it.
This a a law that needs to be stopped ASAP. It's out of control. At least letting the "victims" wipe the slate would be good.
Now I am going to say they should have kicked him out after a few days of parking in the lot for hours and not buying anything. Not three months.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
It's theft is it?
Has anyone here ever been to a trade show and taken the free swag without ever buying the product promoted on said swag? Have you accepted free posters & whatnot from an auto show without later buying a Ferrari or Porshe?
Did you ever accepted the free t-shirts that newspapers and other companies hand out on campuses, at sporting events, concerts, etc. all over the country without later purchasing the goods or services they promote?
Then you sir, are a thief. None of that swag was free for those companies. And you should be charged.
Some coffee shops offer free WiFi in an effort to get people into the store spending money. If it fails, that's too bad. When someone uses their free wifi without buying anything it's perfectly ethical and it's perfectly legal.
Other coffee shops charge customers for WiFi. If this shop can't handle the inevitable freeloaders they've certainly got the option to lock down their network--and until they do the freeloaders are doing nothing wrong.
The Statue of Liberty is America's lawn jockey.
but I'm unfamiliar with US law on this.
US law is "he is a sex offender -- he has no rights."
And if you disagree with that, then you are obviously a terrorist.
What the hell are you talking about? No one is infiltrating any freedoms here. If you own the hub, you can set up any rules you want to who uses it. You have no constitutional right to open Wi-Fi signals provided by private businesses.
That's an open question. If you're broadcasting signals, what right do you have to tell me that I can't receive them?
My opinion is that it's up to you to at least indicate that this is a private network that you shouldn't access. You do that by at least setting up basic security. Sure, WEP is easy to break. So are most door locks. But if you enable WEP and I break in, then I'm knowingly trespassing where I don't belong.
And no, posting a TOS inside your business isn't the same thing. I can easily access the signal without ever seeing that TOS. Suppose I hang a picture up that's visible through my plate glass window, and beside it post a sign that says that I own this picture and if you look at it, you agree to pay me the sum of $100. If you walk by and look at my picture through the window, are you bound by those TOS? And if you're going to claim that that's different, you need to specify exactly why I should be bound by a TOS posted inside your business that I've never seen when I access a public, unencrypted signal.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
I'm pretty sure the article said he was sitting in the parking lot, and that is most definitely NOT public property.
If that's the case, then this makes it even more ridiculous. The shop sets up a wireless network for people on their property to use, and then someone is arrested because they didn't buy anything.
The shop have the right to tell him to leave their property, and if he refuses that would be trespass. Did they do this? It is not a crime to be on a shop's property that is open to the public, and to use their service which they make open to these people, just because I don't abide with whatever rules they have set.
Also, the article didn't say anything about whether or not the coffee shop had a TOS for their internet service. To say one doesn't exist is ridiculous. The person who owns the wireless hub and pays for the signal dictates what the rules are.
They get to dictate the TOS, they don't get to dictate the law.
If someone breaks the TOS, you ask them to leave. Breaking a TOS is not a crime.
What the hell are you talking about? No one is infiltrating any freedoms here. If you own the hub, you can set up any rules you want to who uses it. You have no constitutional right to open Wi-Fi signals provided by private businesses.
I think being arrested involves a loss of freedom. And yes, he may have no right to those signals, but the shop provided them to him. The shop has every right to not provide them if they wish.
By this logic, it would be okay for any shop to arrest any customer for trespass without asking them to leave first "because they have no constitutional right to enter an open shop".
Indeed, by this logic, all sorts of things would be illegal. You have no "constitutional right" to post on a private website such as Slashdot - do you say it's okay for you to be arrested if Slashdot wishes that?
"As it turns out, Smith is a Level One Sex Offender"
How is this a relevant detail to the story? Now, if this guy was using their connection to commit such crimes against other people, THEN it would be an important detail. Otherwise, IMHO, the story really doesn't seem that important.
NEWS FLASH! A 22 year old man was cited for jay walking on a busy street and as it turns out he's a sex offender! More details on KBS at 10!
-or-
NEWS FLASH! A 19 year old boy was arrested today for stealing a hand full of 5 cent bubble gum. During a news conference today it was revealed that he is also a statutory rapist!
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
It sounds like (my reading of TFA anyway) that they only found out he was a sex offender after he was arrested. So that could not have been the reason used to arrest him in the first place. People keep bringing it up as a kind of ex post facto justification of what happened, which isn't really relevant to the whole internet/AP argument or to his actual arrest, although it'll obviously be a key factor in what happens to him.
So I suspect that the police probably found some other grounds to arrest him on originally, and then once they made the ID and found out he was a sex offender (jackpot!), they can now charge him with all sorts of other good stuff -- violation of the terms of his parole or of a court order, probably.
From an internet-law perspective, it's too bad the guy turned out to be a sex offender because the interesting legal point of whether he was actually committing a crime by using the AP while sitting on the street and not going into the business will never be addressed; it'll almost certainly be overshadowed by more serious infractions this guy has committed. I'd wager that they never bother to charge him with theft of services or anything, if they can get him on more substantial parole violations. (Because theft of services wouldn't carry much of a penalty and would be a weak case to begin with, while the parole violation can probably land him back in prison without trial, just a hearing before the sentencing judge or parole board. From the police's perspective -- "how do we put the creepy guy away with the least amount of effort/expense" -- that's a better outcome.)
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
"Complementary" is still free. Interior lighting is "complementary" and intended for patrons, but there isn't squat they can do if I'm sitting on the bus bench on the sidewalk reading Crime and Punishment by the light coming out their windows. If they don't want their light used, they need to block the windows. If they don't want their free wifi used by anyone but patrons, they need to put some sort of access control in. Even a simple "gateway" page that pops up in your browser the first time and says "intended for patrons only" would be better. You can't just stick a Linksys router on the counter and then get all huffy and call the cops when people using it aren't abiding by your unwritten, unspoken, "intentions". This is the 21st century. Bandwidth is cheap enough that you can find open wifi nodes all over the place. The presumption that an open node that communicates no TOS and just hands out IP addresses via DHCP is, in fact, open is not an unreasonable presumption. It's essentially equivalent to installing a drinking fountain at the sidewalk and getting angry because passers-by are drinking from it.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Yes, I think this is key. If I am driving around, and I happen apon an open access point, then it is reasonable for me to assume I have permission to use it, and it is reasonable for me to check my email and be on my way. Likewise, if I go to an internet address in my web browser, and I happen to connect to an Apache server on port 80, then I can reasonably assume that it is okay for me to read that web page.
Some people may disagree with me about it being reasonable to assume that I have permission to use the open access point. But, I think we can all agree that using it is ambiguous. It isn't clearly disallowed. But, if somebody notices me using their access point, and comes out to tell me that it isn't allowed, or they call the cops and have them tell me it isn't allowed, that is different. I can longer assume that I have implicit permission to use that access point. I absolutely know that I do not have that permission. By using the access point, I am willfully doing something that I know isn't allowed. I'd put it in the same moral category as breaking encryption keys on a closed WAP, or trying to hack into a webpage with password protection. The owner of the resource has clearly done something to make it clear that permission is not granted.
At that point, arresting the belligerent son of a bitch is probably perfectly justified.
Some people may say that the WAP was broadcasting radio waves into his vehicle, so he had the right to do whatever he wants with them. I'll agree to a point, but I don't think that makes it acceptable to use the WAP. Passively monitoring and analysing the radio waves that enter your property is, IMO, reasonable. I wouldn't do it, and I would consider it morally wrong, but I don't think that monitoring unencrypted radio transmissions should be illegal. If you steal a credit card number or something, *that* may well be illegal. But, I think that making it illegal to tune a radio is a horrible precident. Even so, tuning a radio is different from tying up CPU time of somebody else's WAP, and using bandwidth from their network connections. You are depriving the employees of the coffee shop and the customers from a tangible, finite resource (bandwidth, among other things). That's theft. Theft gets you arrested.